Christmas Music, Candlelight, And Termite Christmas Spirit, buoyant with optimism, was awakening in the Nineteenth Century. The Puritan mania had waned. Church music was being revived. Old Christmas carols had come out of hiding: Composers were creating new ones. Hawaii’s King Kamehameha IV, wanted a grand Cathedral with ceremony and ritual instead of the bareness Missionaries brought to his kingdom. Saint Andrews Episcopal Cathedral in Downtown Honolulu is the fulfillment of his dream. “Iolani,” his name, is carried on by a Hawaii Episcopal School. He and brother Lot, youthful princes, traveled to Europe during its religious ritual revival. They witnessed grandeur and ceremony and services alive again with ritual, symbolism, and inner meaning. He wanted this for Hawaii, but died before his dream, St. Andrews Cathedral in Honolulu, could be realized. His brother Lot, King Kamehameha V, carried on. Its in downtown Honolulu: European-style cathedral look, stained glass windows, incense floating in the air, within is chanting, and full-throttle organ music. Ancient and revived choral music epitomize the Hawaiian brothers’ dream and one shared by Queen Emma, Kamehameha IV’s widow. (Postscript: At the entranceway--you’ll have bend to see it--is a worldly touch: the only stained glass window commemorating a Termite! In olden times Hawaii wooden buildings succumbed to biting, crunching, swallowing of termites. Not this stone one. A termite is only a puckish stained glass memory here. Now you know my story of “King Lot’s Sense of Humor.”)
Posted on: Fri, 19 Dec 2014 23:34:58 +0000
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